Cornerstone
by Shade Embry
Summary: Without A Trace fanfic. How did Martin get on the squad? An incident that motivates his assignment.


|Top of Form | |Fanfic » TV Shows » Without A Trace » Cornerstone | |By Brittany "Thespis" Frederick | | | |Bottom of Form |  
  
Cornerstone  
  
Author: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: Martin thinks back after day one to day minus one when it all started.  
  
Spoilers: Pilot  
  
Disclaimer: Without A Trace is not mine. It's the property of CBS and its production company and creators and so forth. However, this fic and all original content in it IS mine, and if you wish to repost it, please let me know at AgentThespis@msn.com, and I'll gladly let you. I also want to thank the phenomenal team at WTA, especially the delightful Eric Close, for a show that got me hooked from day one.  
  
Martin Fitzgerald lay back in the bed, staring at the vanilla ceiling, thinking about the case that he'd just finished. His first one with the MisPers team, which made it something to reflect on. He'd seen the way they'd looked at him, wondering if he'd bought his position, and he hoped he'd proved them wrong. But that wasn't what mattered. He wondered what could make someone just want to disappear like that. He suspected it came down to the same fundamental reason he joined the Missing Persons squad in the first place, although probably not the exact same. He doubted Maggie had ever known Trish McCullough.  
  
He had been working in Florida's field office when he'd been dating Trish. She was assistant chief of the local CSI, a criminologist with a little profiling experience and the resident MisPer expert, since it was a small suburban CSI; she was often playing more than one role. Six-one, with long dark hair and eyes that had a spark to them, she always looked tired but never fatigued. That was the difference. She never gave up.  
  
It had been a Thursday night when he had gotten off work and driven over to the office to pick up Trish, who worked overtime without being asked to to make sure the place ran efficiently. She was in the same place. At her desk, half-wearing the headset she used for the phone that was falling down her neck. That always made him smile.  
  
"Ready to go?" he said, walking into the bullpen.  
  
She jumped slightly, turning her head toward the sound of his voice. Her startled-disturbed expression faded. "Hi. It'll just be a minute. I need to."  
  
Martin waved her off. "Take your time," he replied, leaning in the doorway by her desk. "What's doing tonight?"  
  
"Final forms on evaluations." She signed a few more pages, then tossed the clipboard she was using across the desk, and it skidded to a halt between her nameplate and her desk lamp. Trish stood and grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair. "I think you're too late, Martin," she said, looking at the chaos on the desk surface. "I think I'm married to this job."  
  
"Hey, remember who you're talking to," he said, hugging her close to him. She kissed him appreciatively on the cheek, and he kissed her back. They were together in their high-pressure existence, and he knew exactly what she was going through. Somehow it made his life make sense in the going.  
  
Martin could hear the bleating noise, and it took him a second to remember what it was. The phone on her desk. Trish swore and walked back the short distance to snap up the receiver.  
  
"McCullough. Go ahead." He could tell when she sat down on the desk and started looking concerned that this was not good news. "All right. Start breaking it up. No, he's got to be out there somewhere. We'll take care of it. Tony, Jesus . no, don't leave the . I've got it." The phone dropped back onto the cradle. "Martin, I'm gonna have to take this."  
  
He arched an eyebrow. "What happened?"  
  
"Eric just went missing. He was on Tony's team for this 420 and now he's gone. I don't get it." She turned round and started yelling orders at people. With most everyone gone, and Trish the most ranking officer and MisPer expert, this would be her case. Martin gave up all hope of dinner. He instead volunteered himself as the night shift guys started working on what would be the first MisPer case he'd ever seen, let alone been involved with.  
  
It went on for just an hour or two, a short thing for a MisPer. Eric Hollman was one of the CSIs who'd been working under Tony Rodriguez on a homicide. He had said he was returning back to drop off some evidence, but Tony had phoned evidence control when Eric hadn't come back only to find out Eric had never made it. They'd started a very quick, very brief, abbreviated DOD timeline, started making calls. Trish had been in the middle of it, directing traffic, yelling stuff into her headset.  
  
For her, it was a hard lesson to learn. One of her CSIs had vanished, and in the absence of unit leader Derrick Linde, she was the point woman. Trying to make sense of it all. Martin tried to help her, but she was a criminologist and not a field officer and she was doing the best she could. Her expertise, even that which made her the expert, was just what she had read, never practiced significantly. In her eyes, she saw something die. She knew she would never make it to running that room. She'd be ASAC until she retired or transferred. No matter what happened to Derrick, she'd never cut it. And she knew it then.  
  
They found Eric in a hospital. His car had been hit and he had been knocked out in a hit and run. He was going to be fine when he woke up, and the hit and run investigation kicked in, but by then, his teammates from the murder scene were back and they could take the case over. Trish was done for the night. And for more than that. When Tony showed up, she dropped her headset and walked out of the room, brushing right by Martin, who knew exactly what had happened. He could read her, and he didn't need to, not tonight. This was going to change things.  
  
"Trish."  
  
"What?"  
  
Martin put a hand on her shoulder, felt her jump again. "I'm right here."  
  
"I . cannot do this."  
  
"Yes, you can. Come on. It was an accident. An accident."  
  
"And it scared the hell out of me, Martin."  
  
"I'd like to think you'd worry if I went missing."  
  
Now she was able to smile. "Yeah . but indecision kills, Martin ."  
  
Her voice rang in his head long after the memory faded back to the look of his apartment ceiling. Indecision kills. Jack would have said it, probably, maybe he had. It sounded like him. 48 hours and gone, wasn't that how it worked? Trish was, to his knowledge, still ASAC, still in that room she could never run. They hadn't actually broken up, but it was over. Yet he still worried about her. He was in the MisPer room in Manhattan, he knew, partially because he wanted to prove to her she could run hers in Florida. Something about her failure made him drive his own successes. Her brother, Jace, was an air traffic controller, and because of him she'd been able to see and think like a controller in a way nobody else could. He was just like her, trying to make sense out of chaos and do it quickly before somebody paid the price. Maybe that didn't make much sense, but to him it did.  
  
Martin reached over and picked up the phone by the bed, dialing a number in the silence that followed thoughts like these. It rang three times before the machine picked up.  
  
"Hey, it's Trish. I'm still at the office. If you need to reach me, my cell phone number is 649-2234. Otherwise, I'll try to return your call as soon as possible. Don't ask me when that is; justice never sleeps."  
  
The recording ended on a slight laugh at the cliched yet so venerated statement. Martin hung up the phone and went back to the ceiling. Trish had been his cornerstone, the person he'd wanted to be. Maybe this day or some other day in the future, he could be the same thing for somebody else. Maybe, just maybe, he could be the reason somebody wouldn't want to disappear anymore. Because he would always find them. 


End file.
